Klaus wrote:
Nela wrote:

A real indictment of the contract and wage policies of the past few years. Gazidis spend his first couple of years signing most of our player up to long term deals by overpaying for a lot of mediocre players. And now we can't sell any of them. Not even Bendtner could be sold.

It's just the reality of football. The likes of City, United and Chelsea have pushed the wages through the roof in the last couple of years. You either follow suit or you'll lose all of the even remotely decent squad depth you've got. Roque Santa Cruz hasn't played a full game of football for City in over two years but he's still there because no one can afford to take him permanently. It was the same story with Adebayor. City still pay the better part of his salary just to get him off their books. A decade ago Winston Bogarde was ridiculed for pocketing wages at Chelsea. Today it's common practise.

Di maria (real madrid) started with 1.8 million euros per year.
So, 37.5k EUR per week.
I don't know why we pay so much money to a bunch of useless players

asajoseph wrote:

Actually, we signed Iliev...

Get in!

Don't we have an emergency goalkeeper on loan in the youth setup at the minute? It's a sign that we're plugging a gap, not even a reason to assume that he's even any good!

Shady Shakes wrote:

We didn't actually manage to sell any of Park, Chamakh, Bendtner, Arshavin, Squillaci or Denilson did we? They either got loaned out or are still here I think. Incredible.

At least we managed to loan / re-loan a couple of them. Since we can't be fucked signing actual players I suppose we can call Chamakh and Arshavin 'depth'.

Calling Chamakh depth is like being drowned in a puddle.

Crazy to look at our squad. One thing to think about the gamble regarding the "big" early signings - suppose it'll all work out very well. But even if - where's the cover?
Very worried. This does look ominous.

If we somehow manage to survive the first half of the season and then buy in january then we can finish in the top 4. No chance of a trophy haul this season. Such a shame we didn't lose 8-2 to Stoke or Sunderland, or else it would be a blessing in disguise like last season which propelled us to finish 3rd.

Disgusted Chamakh and Squillaci is still here, especially the former as our lack of striking depth would mean he will play a big number of games.

Meanwhile, Spurs only signed 2 players on deadline day. Friedel is already quite good so Lloris won't improve them, Dempsey will bring in alot of vital goals though like VDV.

In the end the most impressive team in this summer's window is imo Chelsea, followed by Everton, Manutd, Swansea, QPR, Fulham, Man City... we languish around the bottom.

Gotta pray Arteta stays fit for 4 months and that Giroud and Podolski can score enough goals between them to keep us up there.

It's a strange gamble by the club. No doubt we'll get a player or two at good value in January, especially if we find those with contracts running out - but at what cost to our season? Well, we all know, and that's what makes it so unacceptable.

Our first XI is fine I reckon, but quality in depth is a huge problem. I'm trying not to think of what impact a medium to long term injury to Cazorla would have. And then we're an injury to Giroud/Podolski away from Chamack having to play some games.

(Yawn) this is the same crap we were discussing 5 years ago......

this is absurd, even if we'd just won the treble there's no reason to make a profit and leave money unspent. Cut ticket prices then if you're all so fuking smug

December, mate, it's all about December. 😆

Fans arent going to take this lying down, unfprtunately i cant see anything happening apart from animosity on both sides.

I think Wenger's filtered down the players he wants to sign in Jan.
He's probably asked the scouts to bring him players with less than a year left on their contracts. That's the only way we'll sign anyone.

Biggus wrote:

(Yawn) this is the same crap we were discussing 5 years ago......

It's worth looking at the squad we could have had to really put our performance in the transfer market in perspective

Szczesny
Sagna Koscielny Vermaelen Cole
Fabregas Flamini Arteta
Cazorla Rvp Nasri

Flamini's in the team assuming he maintained his level. Now onto the second team.

Fabianski
Eboue Toure Mertesaker Clichy
Wilshere Diarra Song
Hleb Ade Podolski

And finally the third team.

Manonne
Coquelin Djourou Squillaci Santos/Gibbs
Chamberlain Ramsey Diaby
Walcott Giroud Gervinho

What? 😆

😆

otfgoon wrote:
Biggus wrote:

(Yawn) this is the same crap we were discussing 5 years ago......

Ah how the circle turns, I who used this picture 100 times to berate Wenger for his weak useless teams, now see it turned against me.......

Temo, I feel sorry for you to actually have put in some time to make that post.